Kempainen Guts Out Olympic Berth

Coogan, Brantly Also Qualify For U.s. Marathon Team

February 18, 1996|By Philip Hersh, Tribune Olympic Sports Writer.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — With two miles to go in Saturday's U.S. Olympic men's marathon trial, leader Bob Kempainen lurched to a stop. His knees wobbled like those of a boxer about to hit the canvas, he bent over at the waist and he began to vomit for the second time in less than a minute.

At that point, it didn't matter that the fourth-year medical student at the University of Minnesota could have diagnosed what was happening to his insides. More important was the prognosis for Kempainen to keep not only the lead but one of the three spots on the U.S. marathon team for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

Kempainen's answer to that question came not from the precision of medicine but the wonderfully inexact science of the human spirit. As his gut betrayed him, his guts carried him to victory and the richest first prize, $100,000, in marathoning history.

While vomiting six times in the final two miles, Kempainen drove himself to break away from his two final challengers, Mark Coogan and Keith Brantly. He ran the second half of the 26.2-mile race faster than the first and finished in 2 hours 12 minutes 45 seconds, beating Coogan by 20 seconds and Brantly by 37. Steve Plasenscia was another 58 seconds back in fourth.

Jeff Jacobs of Roscoe, Ill., matched his ninth seed by finishing ninth in 2:16:13. Mark Conover, the 1988 trials winner who had fought back from cancer to qualify again, was 71st of the 90 finishers.

"This guy (Kempainen) is the toughest human being on the face of the earth," said the top-seeded Brantly. "I would have started crying and stopped."

The laconic Kempainen, 29, of Minnetonka, Minn., passed off his distress as "an upset tummy." He is used to this sort of problem, having what laymen call a nervous stomach. Yet he had never before lost his breakfast--in this case, a muffin washed down by a diluted sports energy drink--while running a marathon.

Since his marathon debut in 1991, Kempainen had gained some impressive credentials while pursuing the medical degree he will get in June. He finished 17th in the 1992 Olympics, set a U.S. record of 2:08:47 at Boston in 1994 and was the country's top-ranked marathoner in 1994 and 1995.

So it was no surprise when Kempainen moved into the lead of a five-runner pack with a surge at 18 miles. Another surge at the 21st mile left only Coogan, 29, of Boulder, Colo., and Brantly, 33, of Ft. Lauderdale, able to cling to his pace, which included running the 23rd mile in a sizzling 4:42.

By then, Kempainen's stomach already had begun to feel queasy. He blew past the liquid stop at 24 miles, feeling there was more risk of further gastric problems from drinking than there was of dehydration in the cold weather--28 to 37 degrees during the race. And then the vomiting started.

"I was worried," Kempainen said, "not so much about finishing, because I thought if I really had to, I could stop and wait for it to pass, but about inhaling and coughing. Between hurling (vomiting), I felt pretty good."

Indeed, Kempainen seemed to run faster after each of his discomfited episodes, leaving Coogan and Brantly to marvel at how he was running and, finally, to realize he was pulling them along to Atlanta. Coogan made $40,000, Brantly $30,000.

At 25 miles, Coogan looked at Brantly and said, "We're on the team." Brantly reached out to give a low-five to Coogan.

"And we started crying," Coogan said.

Brantly's emotions took over as he lifted "the monkey that has been on my back the longest time." He had twice missed an Olympic team by one place, finishing fourth in the trials for the 5,000 meters in 1988 and the marathon in 1992.

Four years ago, Coogan's wife, Gwyn, had made the Olympic team at 10,000 while he missed in the steeplechase. Last week she finished fourth in the women's marathon trials in Columbia, S.C.

Gwyn Coogan, a Ph.D candidate in mathematics, figures she still has a decent chance to make the Olympic team in the 10,000 at the U.S. track and field trials in June.

"Once I got home, it was my turn to help Mark," Gwyn said. "This has been the focus of his life the past eight years. When we get back (to Colorado) this time, we can pick up the pieces."

Others had bigger pieces to pick up. Arturo Barrios, the second seed, and Mark Plaatjes, the 1993 world champion, dropped out during the race with injuries. Paul Zimmerman, who had led by a minute at the halfway point, was caught at the 15th mile and dropped out five miles later from exhaustion.

Barrios tore a calf muscle at nine miles and left on crutches. Plaatjes, the South African emigre whose running career was limited for a decade by the international bans on his native land, had his dream of running the Olympics for the U.S. ruined by an inflammation of the pubic bone.

"I can't tell you how disappointed I am," Plaatjes said.

Some pain is bearable, other is not. Intestinal fortitude can go only so far.